A Mad World
by annaisadinosaur
Summary: Blaise Zabini was driving her mad. He hated her, and yet Parvati couldn't bring herself to hate him, as hard as she tried. The feeling, whatever it was, made her feel so alone, and she was bound to go insane if she couldn't learn to hate him back.


_Sit and listen, sit and listen... no one knew me, no one knew me, look right through me, look right through me..._

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**A Mad World  
**

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How could the world be such a mad place?

She hated Blaise.

Stubborn, pig-headed, vain, rude, Parvati told herself, and she swore right then and there that she would end this thing they had, whatever it was, the next time she saw him.

She could do better than him, and she knew it. _She_ wasn't being vain about it, certainly, not like Blaise. Nothing like Blaise. And that was it, wasn't it? She was nothing like him. He was far too arrogant, all too stingy, and though she'd spent weeks denying it, he was the biggest misanthrope she'd ever met in all her sixteen years of living. He hated everyone. Even her.

The faces around her seemed to fade, all too animated and involved in each other to notice her resignation from the group. They _hadn't_ noticed, had they? They hadn't noticed anything at all, even Lavender. She was falling away from them, growing distant, and at first, her fear had reassured her that it was okay, it was okay, because she was falling to Blaise, for him, and he would catch her.

But he wouldn't. She was alone.

She focused on their faces, searching for a hint of her own anxiety and despair in any of their expressions, but she found none, and it only made her feel all the more alone. Parvati wanted to hide her head, run out of the place screaming. Why? _How?_ How did one person have the capability of taking away everything she thought she knew?

He'd changed the way she saw everything, that damn Blaise Zabini, with his stupid, pompous words that had never made sense, anyways.

But she was still alone either way.

She needed to get him out of her mind, rid her head of those horrible thoughts he'd planted there, yell and scream and shout at him until her lungs were dry.

He couldn't hate her _anything_ like she hated him.

But that wasn't true. She didn't hate him. How could she?

She grew tired of how everyone, everyone, looked straight through her, and she couldn't handle it anymore. She stormed out of the Great Hall, anger driving heat to her skin, and shoved past vaguely familiar bodies until she was just completely gone.

And when she stopped, there was Blaise, a book in hand by his side, a blank expression on his face.

She didn't think to wonder what he was doing there, in the middle of the corridor, appearing out of nowhere as if he was expecting her. She didn't take a moment to consider it. All she knew was that they were alone, perfectly alone, while the rest of the school ate dinner in the Great Hall, blissfully unaware of the two polar opposites that had met just yards away.

Parvati couldn't control herself, and she thrust herself at him, pushing him with all the might she could summon straight in the chest. She was so furious that she didn't notice he hardly moved at all, only dropped the book he was holding, and stood still, staring at her incredulously.

"Bloody hell, what's gotten into—"

But she wouldn't let him finish. "You are _sick_!" she expelled, and the words drew all the air from her lungs. "Evil! _Twisted!_"

He opened his mouth to make a remark, but Parvati didn't notice.

"You are _killing_ me, and you're so much of a git that you don't even give a damn!"

The look in his eyes was not concerned, or compassionate, and it lit the fire in Parvati's mind so much higher. "What? What did I do?" He was smirking, mouth turned with mirth, pleased with himself that he could cause such a reaction in her. Content that he could push her past her own sanity.

She hit him, punched hard at his sides, struck him again and again until the force exhausted her and she fell into hysterics, fury burning tears from her eyes and shaking her shoulders with sobs. She'd hardly touched him at all, and the actions had been more for her rather than for him; she'd needed to push out the frustration _some_ way, and her mind was so gone that she didn't even care how weak she was making herself appear.

She pressed herself against him, still crying uncontrollably, and Blaise remained stiff, seemingly uncomfortable at her sudden lack of self-restrain. She didn't care what he thought. She never had. Parvati pulled away from him, falling instead to the wall for support, and the moments in which she released herself in pitiful tears felt like hours to them both.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, and his voice cut through her sorrow, bringing her back to the surface.

"Why are _you_ doing this?" she seethed, standing up straight, and felt herself regain control of her anger. Her face was streaked with tears, but she didn't care to wipe them away.

"I haven't done anything," he answered, and he let out a long breath. "I didn't know you were so emotional, Parvati."

"I'm not," she defended quickly. "You're just so insensitive that any ounce of feeling is far too dramatic for you."

Blaise was growing irritated at her lack of directness and clenched his jaw, finally snapping. "Will you just _tell_ me what the hell is wrong with you?"

"You! You, you, you!" She threw her hands up in the air. "I don't even know why I bother with you! I don't know why I care, I don't know why I've let you drag me into this, I don't know why I always come back to you—I don't get anything in return, nothing that's worth anything in the end! You're always so, so terrible, so selfish, so judgmental, so cruel, and I'm fighting for you like there's something here worth fighting for!" She was panting now just to finish her sentences. "Why? Why don't you just tell me to sod off and never look at you again? Why can't you just make me go away?"

He raised his eyebrows, gaze stony and cold. "Are you telling me that I need explain myself to you, Parvati?"

"Don't talk to me like that," she flared. "Like I'm inferior to you. I won't listen to you when you talk like that."

"You're the one that chooses to listen. I never asked you to."

"I'm the only person that _will_," she shrieked. "I'm the only one that cares at all!"

Blaise ventured to think the feeling he felt for her was something of abhorrence, and the animosity was so venomous and furious on his skin that it drove his passion for her. He resented the way she spoke of things, the way she saw into him, and the feeling repulsed him so intensely that he had to silence her. He could have stunned her or struck her, anything really, for her persistence made him feel many things, but he was not violent with her. His abhorrence drove an entirely separate instinct, one that drove him to be close to her. He kissed her suddenly, catching her face in his hands, and pressed his lips hard and rough against hers.

She gasped against him, and moved as if to pull away, but his fervor was infectious and she couldn't restrain herself. It was like the contact had flipped a switch in her mind. She clawed at his collar, digging her nails in his shoulders, and he brushed his mouth against her jaw, trailing heated kisses down her neck.

The way he could hold her like this against him was nonsensical. The way he longed for her like this every day, the way the thought of them together, alone, sent his heart pulsing furiously. The way he was never calm when he was with her. The way he had to concentrate so hard to not think when he was with her. He wanted blind passion, nothing else, and in moments like this, it was the way they moved together, burning fire along each other's skin, that mattered, and nothing else.

He tugged at her lip with his teeth, and she hissed, hitting the brink of insanity. He pressed his lips against hers instead, again and again, softening.

Parvati couldn't breathe. She was going mad.

"Blood traitor," she whispered against his mouth, and he hesitated as she went on. "Remember? That's what I am."

He pretended like he hadn't heard, reuniting their mouths, bringing his arms down around her, tracing his fingers along the arch of her back.

But she didn't give up, and repeated it, the words tickling at his skin, antagonizing. "Blood traitor."

His lips twitched, but he was unable to pull himself away. "Shut up. Don't remind me," he growled.

She tilted her head, pulling back from him only slightly to meet his gaze, and she was taunting him. "But that's what I am, and it's not like you don't know it. Yet, I don't see you going around snogging any other _blood traitors_. Why's that, Blaise?"

He was silent, and she brought her hand to his face, running her fingers along his chin.

"Am I beautiful? Is that it?"

She was. Absolutely stunning, he couldn't deny it, and Blaise was particularly hard to please. But a filthy blood traitor, he reminded himself, and he wouldn't satisfy her with an answer.

"I think you're rather good looking," she admitted, dropping her hand from his chin, lowering it instead to his neck, trailing her fingers down his chest. "I _also_ think that you're just as insane as I am."

"Insane?" For a moment, his voice lacked fire, and was gentle with curiosity.

Her dark eyes found his again, so tauntingly, and the way she looked at him twisted his stomach. "I can't help it. I feel like I hate you all the time."

The heat returned, the fire lit his eyes, the hate, and suddenly he wanted her again, wanted her to stop talking so he could feel that incredible intensity.

"You make me feel ashamed to be who I am," she said, and her voice was reigniting as well. "I want you and yet I want them. It's either you or them, isn't it? That's why you're so hushed up about me. Because I can't be one of them and be with you at the same time. I'm your dirty little secret, the filthy blood traitor."

He stared, narrowing his eyes.

She broke free from him, anger burning her movements. "Well, you win, okay? I lost. I don't know who I am anymore. I feel…" She paused, biting her lip. "I feel alone. I can't connect to anyone because I'm always thinking of you, and it's like I'm betraying them. With _you_. The filthy, arrogant Slytherin." She ended it with a sneer, and he reminded himself that she couldn't hurt him, as hard as she tried, because he didn't care about her.

He never had.

He laughed humorlessly. "Then why don't you just tell me to sod off and never look at you again?" he mimicked her. "Why can't you just make me go away?"

Parvati remembered that she'd sworn she would. But she couldn't summon the words. The desire had faded away.

Blaise Zabini hated everyone. Even her.

She wanted to hate him, too. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could learn to. If she hated him, she wouldn't need him, and she could find herself where she belonged again.

It wasn't here with him.

She brought herself back to him, and hungrily he accepted her gesture, burning his mouth against hers, leaving trails of fire along her arms and under the hem of her shirt. She was gentle, moving her lips like a whisper, and Blaise was so consumed in the feeling of her against him that he hadn't realized she'd said anything at first.

"Sometimes," she said, pausing to brush her lips back against his again, "I like to pretend that I'm dead. Those dreams are always the best."

Her words were sharp, powerful, and shocking, and Blaise froze, appalled at the ease in which she spoke.

"If I cursed myself," she continued, oblivious to the fact that he'd stopped kissing her, "straight in the head, right here, where it'd be fatal," she said, gesturing to a spot on her forehead, "who would you kiss like you're kissing me now?"

He could feel his heart in his chest, and it didn't race like it normally did at Parvati's touch. Instead, it stung, ached, oozed poison through his blood, spreading fast to his face. He couldn't move.

"Parkinson, maybe?"

He closed his eyes, longing to stop the sudden ache, longing to silence her once more. He wanted to dwell in the thought of how much power he had over her, wanted to think about how he could control her so easily, so simply, like he always had. He wanted that old feeling of adrenaline at her connection to him, but it felt out of place in his mind. Too potent. He shook his head.

"Daphne Greengrass," she suggested instead. "She has nice hair."

He opened his eyes slowly, but didn't raise his eyes to meet her gaze, and instead took a lock of her long, dark hair in his fingers, feeling it against his skin.

"I like mine better, too," she said quietly, and he met her gaze, a hard expression in his eyes. She pressed her lips softly onto his, eyes fluttering closed, and he remained still, willing himself to restrain from his impulses. He was so _impulsive_ with her, and she was taking advantage of it.

She could feel it, maybe, if she tried hard enough, Blaise's sick hatred. She smiled bitterly, moving back from him, out of his grasp.

"I'll learn to hate you, too," she murmured, and she turned and walked slowly, catching a last glance of him over her shoulder.

He found it ironic, painfully and unpleasantly ironic, that he was in fact learning how to not hate her. Her horrifying words had introduced him to the feeling of need, and he was severely afflicted with a kind of platonic hate.

Her slender figure disappeared out of his sight, the sound of her footsteps disappearing afterwards, and he stared, unblinking, at the emptiness.

It was a very mad world. A very mad place indeed.

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_And I find it kinda funny, I find it kind sad, the dreams in which I'm dying, are the best I've ever had_

_I find it hard to take, I find it hard to tell you, when people run in circles_

_It's a very, very mad world_

_Mad world  
_

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__**This is my entry for the Secret Relationships Challenge by stars fall at midnight. I was given BlaiseParvati as my pair, and I think that the real inspiration was a conversation I read between him and Pansy. "Even you think she's good looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all know how hard you are to please!" "_I wouldn't touch a filthy blood traitor like her whatever she looked like._" It kind of drove this entire oneshot, I think, and it was brilliant luck that I received Parvati of all people, as she just so happens to be known as one of the best looking girls in her year. It was a little challenging to write, but I hope it was decent, and I'd love to know what you thought about this rather obscure pair! **


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